Four Steps to Unsubscribing from Diet Culture

Is your email inbox sabotaging your relationship with food? If you’re still getting emails from Weight Watchers, Whole30, or Jenny Craig, it just might be. I’ve had too many clients sit across from me and say, “I’m making so much progress, but I just got an email promising to help me drop a couple of pant sizes and it is really, really tempting. What do I do?”

You get rid of the diet seduction once and for all.

We all have email subscriptions that we need to get rid of in our inbox. Some of them are a nuisance, but others may actually be harmful. Diet-culture emails fall into this latter category, and if you’re trying to heal your relationship with food, it’s time to unsubscribe from them for good. Here are 4 steps to help you lighten your inbox.

Step 1: Hit the unsubscribe button, and when they ask you why you’ve decided to leave their online community, let them know that it’s because their program or eating style encourages restriction, deprivation, disordered eating, and negative body image. Don’t hold back!

Step 2: Those pesky emails might still make their way into your inbox, so mark them as spam immediately. Let your inbox know that if those messages come in, you want nothing to do with them.

Step 3: Make a diet-death folder. Gmail and many other email providers have this handy little tool in settings that allows you to filter your emails so that certain messages never even appear in your inbox. Instead, they go to a special folder of your choosing. Check out exactly how to do it at this link! Title the folder “Go to Hell Diet-Culture” and never look at it again.

Step 4: Fill your inbox with body love and mindful eating resources! This one might be the most important step of them all. It’s not enough to remove diet culture messaging from your inbox. You have to fill it back up with anti-diet, body-positive messaging in kind. Here are some of my favorite newsletters that you can sign up for right now:

Dr. Alexis Conason

Dr. Alexis Conason is a licensed psychologist in private practice in New York City. Her office is conveniently located on the border between the Upper East Side and Midtown East neighborhoods of Manhattan. She specializes in the treatment of overeating disorders, body image, and psychological issues related to bariatric surgery. She also treats people struggling with sexual functioning, depression, anxiety, adjustment problems, relationship issues, and other psychological issues. Please contact her to see if she can help you.